More on "The Dovekeepers"

MORE ON THE DOVEKEEPERS: Alice Hoffman presents her new novel at 2 South Florida book fairs.

More reviews noted here.

"Footnote" reviewed by M&C

FOOTNOTE is reviewed by Monsters and Critics.

More reviews here and links.

Shemini Atzeret and Simhat Torah

SHEMINI ATZERET AND SIMHAT TORAH (more here) came and went while I was out of circulation. Best wishes to all those who celebrated.

I'm in the San Diego Airport, taking advantage of the free wireless while I wait for my flight. Looks like things have been quiet for the last few days, but I'll do a little posting before I grab an early lunch.

Back to St. Andrews

HEADING BACK TO ST. ANDREWS later this morning. I expect to be there Sunday evening.

Cairo Geniza digitization at TAU

CAIRO GENIZA DIGITIZATION AT TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY: Piecing Together the Priceless 'Cairo Genizah' (Science Daily).

Now researchers at Tel Aviv University are working to piece together this illuminating collection, bringing the pages of the texts back together for the first time in centuries. The results are being made available to scholars around the world through a website. Profs. Lior Wolf and Nachum Dershowitz of TAU's Blavatnik School of Computer Science have developed sophisticated software, based on facial recognition technology, that can identify digitized Genizah fragments thought to be a part of the same work and make editorial "joins."

Their technology was developed in close collaboration with the Friedberg Genizah Project, a non-profit organization that seeks to facilitate Genizah research by tracking, cataloguing, and digitizing all the fragments of this collection. The research was presented at the 2011 IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision.

More on the Friedberg Geniza Project here. More on manuscript digitization projects here and here.

AP: Ancient stone to be part of scroll exhibit in NYC

AP: Ancient stone to be part of scroll exhibit in NYC. A stone from the Western Wall, no less.

Background on the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition at Discovery Times Square here.

More on the rescued Bible manuscripts from Syria

MORE ON THE RESCUED BIBLE MANUSCRIPTS FROM SYRIA:

Carr helped get ancient Bible out of Damascus

By VIVA SARAH PRESS, CJN Israel Bureau
Wednesday, 19 October 2011

There wasn’t a dry eye in the room when Toronto’s Judy Feld Carr – who rescued Syrian Jewry – told a packed audience at Israel’s national library about how she got a 700-year-old Bible out of Damascus and eventually brought it to Jerusalem.

[...]

Background here.

ALex Joffe: Diversity at Dura-Europos

ALEX JOFFE: Diversity at Dura-Europos (Jewish Ideas Daily).

A new exhibit at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World brings to life the ancient city of Dura-Europos, which stands high above the Euphrates River on the eastern border of modern Syria, a monument to vanished eras. The exhibition celebrates both the peoples who lived there—Jews, Christians, and pagans—and, more quietly, the scholars who unearthed the city during the 20th century's golden age of Near East archaeology

Background on the exhibition and on Dura Europos here and many links.

Ancient Sukkot iconongraphy

FOR SUKKOT: An Ancient 'Obsession' with Sukkot Iconography.

But although Sukkot emphasizes the present-and a recently created annual design competition called Sukkah City has lent the ritual a postmodern thrust-there is something primordial about its symbols. The lulav and etrog, whether alongside each other or appearing separately, are some of the most prominent symbols in early Jewish art.

Has some nice photos of mosaics etc.

Syriac symposium at Artuklu University

ARAMAIC WATCH: An International Syriac Symposium is planned at Mardin Artuklu University:

SYRIAC IN ITS MULTI-CULTURAL CONTEXT
20-22 April 2012, Mardin

We cordially invite you to contribute to the first Syriac Studies Symposium of Mardin Artuklu University, Turkey. With great pleasure, we organize this symposium in Mardin, a city integral to Syriac culture, history, archaeology and architecture.

[...]

Follow the link for details, registration information, etc.

(Via Elif Keser on the Hugoye list.)

More on the Syriac program at Artuklu University here and links.

Hannibal and Kocaeli

PUNIC WATCH: At Today's Zaman, Elsie Alan opens a two-part series on Hannibal, inspired by her residency in Kocaeli where he spent the end of his life: [THE OUTSIDER] Kocaeli dead celebrities: Hannibal, menace of Rome.